The Catholic Church Is Making Me Dance, HELP!!

Factual Questions
1

Hey all,

My girlfriend and I have decided to be married at this time next year. I personally am not the religious type, but her parents are very firm Catholics, and as a condition of marrying thier daughter, we have to do it in the Church. I agreed to it because I’m a nie guy, and whatever makes her happy, gets me laid. Now I come to find out that in order to be married by the Church, we have to give them a notice at least 6 months prior to this, AND go to some crazy classes before hand. can anyone tell me why this is? I don’t like having to jump through hoops for a faith that I am not a party to.

2

How does your girlfriend feel about this?

Personally, I don’t think it should be up to her parents-it should be between you and your bride-to-be.

3

Most churches book far in advance (since pretty much everybody gets married on Saturday or Sunday). We had to book a year in advance.

Without commenting on your description of the church and the classes you “have to attend to get laid”, it’s pretty standard fair to take pre marital classes/couselling/retreats before getting married in the church (and other religious denominations I would suspect) . They tend to take the sacrament of marriage seriously.

Funny that.

4

We are both ok with it just because it will make her parents happy. If I were a satanist, or a protestant, for that matter, I would be against going. But as an agnostic, it doesn’t hurt me other than that takes up my time. It is the idea, though, that a group that I have no affiliation with can say “Nope, sorry, no marrige for you”. I am just wondering why they ask you to do these things.

5

By choosing to get married in the Catholic Church, by a priest…you have established some semblance of an “affiliation”…however tenuous that affiliation might be.

6

So tell the priest: “Look, I don’t believe all this crap, I’m only here to make her parents happy”. See what he says.

7

Why require 6 months notice? Probably because a LOT of people want church weddings, and the facilities get booked up way in advance. So, if you hope to get married at a given church in June, you’d better sign up for the date you want waaaaay ahead of time.

As for the marriage preparation course you’ll be required to take, well, the “why” should be obvious: the divorce rate is about 50% for Americans as a whole, and it’s only SLIGHTLY lower for American Catholics. The Church is troubled by those stats, and sees a need to do something to make sure that, at the very least, a couple that wants to marry has talked about all the important issues.

Depending on the parish, you’ll probably have two options: either meet with a “sponsor couple” for a period of some weeks, or go to an “Engaged Encounter” weekend. If it’s the former, you’ll have to get together with an older Catholic couple (probably a couple that’s been married a long time) once a week for a few months to talk things over. If it’s the latter, you and a lot of other couples will attend a weekend-long seminar. There’ll be a certain number of lectures, and a lot of periods during which you and your fiancee will have to discuss the relevant issues in private.

While I can understand why you don’t want to “jump through hoops” for a Church you don’t belong to, I can promise you this:
the purpose of these sessions is NOT to beat you over the head with Catholic dogma. MOST of the subjects they’ll deal with are practical, not religious.

You’re not likely to hear a lot of angry rants about how you MUST raise your kids Catholic and how you must NEVER use birth control. More likely, the people running the Engaged Encounters will be raising a number of basic issues about married life, simply to give you and your fiancee a chance to talk about subjects that many couples in love haven’t really thought about. Subjects like finances, for instance. Or raising children. Or dealing with extended families.

I won’t idealize such weekends- they CAN be great, but they can also be long, dull, repetitive, and loaded with self-evident pop-psych platitudes. On the plus side, however:

  1. You’ll meet a lot of other likeable couples (my wife and I still have some friends, from among the group we attended the Encounter weekend with).

  2. The weekend came at a point when we were both exhausted, utterly burned out from wedding planning. A weekend during which we got away from that was a welcome relief.

  3. It’s relatively painless. To use a crude analogy, it’s like taking defensive driving! Even if you’re not Catholic and even if you don’t find the experience all that valuable, it’s not TOO unpleasant, and it’s all over before too long.

8

Oh, and one more major thing:

It’s NOT as if the Engaged Encounter weekend is some kind of test you must pass. The people running it (it will almost certainly be run by a married couple in the parish, NOT by a clergyman) aren’t going to be watching you all weekend, passing judgement, and then deciding whether or not to allow you to get married. Rather, they’re going to require you and your fiancee to sit through some talks, participate in some activities, and engage in some one-on-one conversations.

Bottom line: IF all you want to do is show up, sit there quietly, and go through the motions, you can do that. When it’s all over, you’ll STILL get that little certificate that says you attended, and that’s all that will be required for you to get married in the Catholic Church.

But… even though I know almost nothing about you or your fiancee, I suspect that it might be a very good thing for the two of you to talk out a number of issues (whether it’s on your own or during the Engaged Encounter weekend is irrelevant).

9

Remember that to Catholics (and any other church, to one degree or another), marriage is more than a simple civil union of two individuals. It is a holy sacrament - a manifestation of God’s grace and presence in our lives. It is not something to be entered into lightly.

That’s not to say you’re intending to enter it lightly - they just want to make sure.

The purpose of premarital classes is mulifold:
– making sure you and your fiance understand the spiritual nature and permanancy of marriage
– making sure you have thought through issues like your finances (one of the leading causes of divorce)
– making sure you’ve talked about children and how to raise them

… etc.

Personally, I’m glad when churches make folks jump through hoops to get married. Weeds out the casual and spontaneous unions and helps make sure that it is done with reverence and forethought.

10

Thanks guys. I was kinda scared I would have an elderly clergyman standing over me red-faced screaming “REPENT!REPENT!”, but now it makes sense. And to anyone who got offended by the “getting laid” part of my question, I assure you, it was only for levity. I love my girlfriend to death, and take this very seriously. Just wondering what the Church was going to do with me was all.

Again, thanks.

11

When my husband and I got married in the Catholic church, we only had to talk with the priest once.He asked us a lot of questions (sorry I don’t remember what they were) and then we were done. It was over in an hour. I knew I liked my church :slight_smile:

12

I was raised Protestant but do not attend church, my husband is now a mostly lapsed and dissatisfied Catholic. When we got married in a Catholic church, we had to go to the Engaged Encounter weekend, plus a couple of casual sessions with a married couple from the church who’d taken some classes on this sort of “couples counseling”. We took a multiple-choice test about issues that would come up in marriage (it’s actually a decent psychological measure), and then just discussed with them any questions that we varied on. Both types of premarital sessions were very laid-back and non-judgemental, though it might vary depending on who’s hosting yours.

Just one warning, but this is about the meeting with the priest before the wedding, not the sessions. My husband and I were both required to affirm that we would do our best to raise any children that we had as Catholics - or I think the wording for me was that I would allow any children to be raised that way. The priest will also ask where you were baptized (what church, what year); if you never were baptized, that may or may not cause issues, I don’t know.

13

I married first in the Catholic Church. I attended premarital counseling. My second marriage was in the Methodist Church. I attended premarital counseling. It’s pretty standard.

Regarding the 6 month notice – just try to book a reception hall on a Saturday night in June, much less a church.

As for how much you have to buy-in to what you’re being told, I offer the following anecdote:

When my parents married, more than 50 years ago, my father (non-Catholic) had to attend not only premarital counseling, but also instructions in the Catholic faith if he wanted to be allowed to marry my mother in a Catholic church. (No, he didn’t have to convert, just take the instructions so he’d know what my mother’s religion was all about.)

My father, being an argumentative young cuss, wound up fighting with the priest about virtually every point of Catholic doctrine. After a few such classes, the older, wiser pastor took my father aside. From all accounts, the conversation went like this:

“Do you love this girl?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you want to marry this girl?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Then shut up!”

They were married for 45 years.

14

Whewww! From the title of your post I thought you meant the Church was going to make you DANCE at the wedding !!!

That was the scariest part of my wedding - not only did I have to dance with my bride, (with a hundred people watching me), but I had to dance with her mother and MY MOTHER!

15

The Catholic Church is really into classes now before any sacrament is given out. Baptism, confession, communion, confirmation, marriage.

Two of my brothers (both Catholic) were married in a Catholic church and they opted for a weekend retreat over a series of classes. Their experiences with it varied.

One of these brothers has three children and he has had to go through a pre-Baptism class each time even though he and his wife are on the parish council.

Since marriage is a sacrament of the Church, expect their to many hoops to be put in your path. It’s not something done easily.

[diversion]TV likes to portray families where a Catholic grandparent secrets a grandchild away from a mother or father to have it baptized against the parent’s wishes in the RCC. I don’t believe that any priest would do such a thing unless the baby were in imminent danger of dying.
[/diversion]

16

My wife and I had to go through this when we got married fifteen years ago. She was raised Catholic, Catholic schools and the whole nine yards, whereas my family had attended the Unitarian church, but quit before I was born. So I was never baptised, much less a member of any church.

But it turns out that the Catholic church is prepared for pretty much anything, and there is a form of the marriage ceremony for a Catholic and an unbaptised person. We did have to attend the classes, which weren’t that bad – all that really sticks out in my mind is a pitch for Natural Family Planning – and my wife had to promise to “do all in her power” to raise her children as Catholic. I did not have to make any similar promises.

So, if you love this woman and want to spend the rest of whatever together, and it will make her and her family happy, go ahead. At the most you’ll be bored for a couple of hours.

And, the history and culture of the Catholic church is interesting to observe. I remember the first time she took me to church with her was on Palm Sunday. When they came to the part in the reading where the crowd waved their palms to welcome Christ to Jerusalem, the congregation all raised the palms over their heads and shook them vigorously, I felt like Livingstone in Darkest Africa watching the natives dancing around the fire and going “Booga-Booga”…

17

Little hijack…

My neighbor did do this. Not an actual baptism, but a blessing by the priest. Neither her daughter nor her son-in-law professed any belief in a god and were quite adamant the baby would not be baptized. The neighbor is a devout Catholic. She took her granddaughter to be blessed while the kid’s parents were shopping. The priest involved did know about the parents’ wishes.

18

Well, I’ve only see this plot on TV once. Archie Bunker took his grandson Joey to the local church, hoping to get him baptized behind Mike and Gloria’s backs. However, the minister refused to perform the baptism- just as, I’m sure, any Catholic priest (or mainline Protestant clergyman) I know would have.

19

Here’s the part that bugs me about the 6 months: We are getting married at my parents house. Surprisingly, I was able to get the backyard reserved with no wait, and no deposit. If we were getting married at the church, I would understand this, but that reasoning doesnt apply here. It feels like I am being told by an authority I have little to no respect for that we can’t be married until they say so. I don’t take very kind;y to this, being the stubborn bastard that I am.

And, kunilou, it is very likely that the priest and I will go toe to toe on a couple issues, so if anyone here has a gripe that they haven’t had the balls or chance to bring up, let me know. I’ll be sure to ask :slight_smile:

20

Actually, to most Protestant denominations, marriage is a covenant between the two getting married, not a sacrament with God.

As the Congregational minister who married Mrs. B and me explained it: marriages for Protestants used to just be civil ceremonies. But parishoners were jealous of the lavish ceremonies their Catholic friends had for weddings. So the Protestant churches threw together a ceremony that people could make as pagentary or plain as they’d wish.